Starry Night

Gillies’s (Happens Every Day) first YA novel traces the rise and fall of a young artist’s first love and how it changes her course. High school sophomore Wren is eager to spend her junior year abroad, studying art in France at Saint-Rémy, where Vincent van Gogh created The Starry Night, her favorite masterpiece. But that’s before a magical evening at a Metropolitan Museum of Art event orchestrated by her museum director father. There, decked out in her mother’s precious Oscar de la Renta gown, Wren is swept off her feet by a handsome young musician, who appears to be just as enamored with her. Over the next few weeks their feelings for each other intensify, making Wren lose sight of her dream of going to France. The enchantment of the couple’s first evening together outshines the rest of the novel, making subsequent conflicts, squabbles, and betrayals anticlimactic by comparison. Still, Wren’s rude awakening from her fairy-tale happiness will be felt deeply, alerting romantics to the danger of losing oneself amid the dazzle of infatuation. Ages 12–up. Agent: Bill Clegg, William Morris Endeavor. (Sept.)